She might be pregnant? The thought popped out of nowhere, causing him to clang his spoon against his saucer with a loud enough clatter to earn him a rebuke from his mother. He thought it unlikely but how would he know? If she was, she couldn’t be that far gone as he thought back to her flat almost concave stomach. How would he feel if he married her only to find she was expecting another man’s child? Would he even know? He scrubbed his hand across his chin, his freshly shaved chin and all he wanted was to be alone for a while.
‘You’d make a great dad; just like your father,’ she continued, her eyes on her plate and not on the sudden colour infusing his face. ‘Best not to leave parenthood too long, you don’t want to be chasing them around with a Zimmer Frame.’
Sunday lunch was just like any other Sunday lunch he’d ever eaten at the castle but, now he knew the cook, it was also a surprise. The roast beef was cooked to perfection, slightly pink just the way he liked it. The roast potatoes had the crispiest coating, something that couldn’t be rushed and something he couldn’t envisage a socialite like Lady Titania Nettlebridge having a clue about. But that’s all he knew. She’d even found time to make apple pie with lashings of freshly whipped cream in addition to miniature ginger snaps to accompany their coffee.
He’d seen her, not that she’d have noticed. Oh, she’d have noticed him and his mother being as they were seated in their usual pew right under the pulpit and therefore right under the direct eye of the vicar. He’d watched out the corner of his eye as she’d sneaked in just before the service started. She hadn’t been wearing either her black skirt or her jeans. In fact he wasn't quite sure what she was wearing. The eponymous woolly bobble hat had been changed for a plain black beret and then there was a black jacket and something long and slinky underneath. A dress? A skirt? He hadn’t a clue, but a deep longing to find out, which wasn’t in keeping with his position as both lord of the castle and under the ever watchful eye of the minister. She’d disappeared before the last words of the final hymn had finished their final echo around the nave but he could hardly blame her. He was sure she was avoiding him, or was it him avoiding her…?
‘That new cook is a marvel. I wasn't sure when I employed her but that was amazing,’ Lady Brayely said, drawing him back into the conversation. ‘Tell her would you, Todd, that the meal was perfectly satisfactory.’
‘But you just said it was amazing…?’
‘Tor, take a tip from me. It’s best not to enthuse too much or else she’ll be asking for a pay rise.’
‘I don’t agree.’ He placed his napkin down on the table before pushing his chair back. ‘Todd, if you can tell Ti… er, Miss Smith that lunch was amazing.’
Lady Brayely pursed her lips but didn’t reply. ‘So what time are you meeting Cassandra and, more to the point, what time will you be due back?’
‘Now. Whilst I have no plans one way or the other for later I don’t expect to be back much before supper. Horses can be unpredictable.’
‘So can women,’ she mumbled under her breath.
‘What did you say?’ He paused by the door, one hand on the polished handle.
‘Nothing at all. Enjoy yourself, but not too much. Remember, actions have consequences and, if you are betrothed to Titania…’
‘Mother, I’m not planning on doing anything foolish…’
‘It’s not you I’m worried about!’
He wasn't planning on doing anything foolish but he couldn’t speak for Cassandra.
He’d joined her at the stables and helped her mount his mother’s pretty grey mare, struggling not to laugh at the sight of her ample rear end encased in tight beige riding breeches.
Finally settled she threw him a frown. ‘What’s up with you then?’
‘Oh nothing, I think I just swallowed a fly.’
Leaping into the saddle with ease he was reminded of his mother’s comment and smiled. If she wasn't such a haughty piece he’d have told her the breeches were most unflattering; any bigger and he’d recommend she applied for a job on one of those docu-soaps. His eyes travelled upwards, taking in her hacking jacket and pulled back hair. It wasn't that she was unattractive, far from it with her nipped in waist and well-rounded chest. It was just she’d never been his sort with her hoity toity ways and snide remarks. He could never forgive or forget the way she’d treated him as a child. If he’d been a poor man would she even have given him a glance?
‘So, where would you like to go then?’ he said, trying to make up for the way his mind kept a running comparison between her and Tansy – there was no comparison, or not as far as he was concerned. Would Cassandra be happy to share a fish and chip lunch on Seil and then sleep on an earthenware floor without a complaint leaving her lips? He was a man of simple tastes and simpler expectations. He didn’t expect anything from Cassandra and, the way she’d taken the lead without a thought for his wishes, he wasn't going to be disappointed.
‘We’ll take the long way round and stop off at my parents for afternoon tea.’
He groaned, gently pulling on the reins so that his horse could follow, not that he’d need much prompting. He’d have to be blind not to spot the large target bouncing up and down in front of him. For some reason best known to his brain Tor couldn’t keep his eyes away from her bottom and the way it strained against the seams of her trousers. He’d tried a couple of times to take in the view only to find his eyes wandering back in morbid fascination. He didn’t fancy her. He didn’t even like her and liking had to come first with him; always.
He was suddenly reminded of his first wife. Had he liked her when they’d first met? It was such a long time ago it was difficult to remember with any kind of accuracy, his mind scrolling back over the years. He’d been eighteen and a nervous young man fresh out of school. He’d fancied her rotten the first time he’d seen her, but then most of Cambridge must have felt the same. She was the daughter of the provost and well versed in playing one spotty undergraduate off against the next. He’d fallen hard during that first term and wouldn’t have a word said against her. Even Pascal had tried to put him off from offering marriage; they’d fallen out because of it. It was as if he was blinkered to everything apart from her pretty, heart shaped face and lithesome body, a body she knew how to use to its best advantage as his eyes fixed again on Cassandra’s bum. If he’d just waited? If he hadn’t proposed after about five minutes of dating he’d have realised just what a little scrubber she was but he couldn’t see it. It was as if he was blind to every one of her faults. So, no, he hadn’t liked her. He’d been infatuated, that was all.
‘I wish I had my shotgun. There’s that ruddy fox again.’ She twisted her head to point at the flash of red hiding under one of the bushes. ‘I’ll get daddy to come out later to see if he can finish him off. Vermin the lot of them…’
He sighed; hoping against hope the fox would have the sense to disappear into the undergrowth. Cassandra wasn't of the ‘shooting above the head’ brigade. She wouldn’t spare a thought for the fox as a sudden image of Tansy came into his head. Tansy tempting the chickens back into their coop with soft words and caresses. She had them under her spell just as she had him under the same magic potion. There must be something magical to get him, a confirmed bachelor of the been-there-been-divorced-and-not-willing-to-go-there-again variety. He liked her. He liked her a lot. He would just like to know what was going on in that pretty little head of hers. What the hell was she thinking play-acting at being cook; play-acting at being his cook? Oh she was good at it, very good but they were betrothed to be married, for heaven’s sake. Her parents were planning for a June wedding with all the trimmings and he certainly wasn’t going to object.
He patted Orion briefly on the neck, taking some comfort from the coarse, roan brown mane even as he allowed himself to dwell on that difficult meeting with her father. He’d given permission for their marriage with a ready handshake. He’d pretty much sold her to the first person he could and he was pretty sure it didn’t matter what kind of a man he
was. He could be a mass murderer or worse but, as long as he had a sizeable fortune and a sizeable title to match, it didn’t matter who or what he was as a man. Poor Tansy or Titania as he was trying to think of her. She didn’t have a hope with parents like that. She didn’t like him, she’d told him as much to his face and yet, married they’d be if his mother and her parents had their way. Married they’d be if he had his way but for a very different range of reasons. The only thing stopping it was if she said no, always a possibility, taking into account her current record. He’d just have to find some way of making that impossible. He couldn’t make her like him…
They’d headed across the bridle path skirting the edge of the castle and were making their way down the gentle slope away from the town with distant views of the islands in the background. If he could just avoid looking ahead he’d be fine, more than fine with the rolling hills to the right and the turbulent seas to the left. The road was quiet but three o’clock on a somnolent postprandial Sunday afternoon was never going to be the busiest on Oban’s roads. In fact, the only person to be seen in the distance was weaving across the road in the most haphazard of fashions. He couldn’t really see, being as Cassandra’s bum pretty much obliterated everything in sight but he could hear as the notes of a well-known tune assailed his ears. He smiled openly now at the off-key rendition of ‘All about that bass’ his eyes lingering for the umpteenth time on that bottom as he heard just how much boys liked booty during the night…
He only stopped smiling at the sound of Cassandra letting off steam yet again. ‘Would you just look at that? Look at her taking up the whole road without a care for anyone else,’ she said, digging her heels into poor old Daisy’s side. ‘It’s about time someone taught these people some manners…’ she added, flying ahead with her whip raised.
He’d never been one for whips or spurs. He’d much rather potter from A to B at a gentle speed. No one used horses as a mode of travel, not for a hundred years or more. Horses were a pleasant break from living life in the fast lane and, if he wanted speed, he’d hop on his motorbike not saddle up his horse.
Now he tapped the side of Orion’s flank with a light pat from his open palm as he whispered in his ear. ‘Overtake Daisy, there’s a good chap,’ and within seconds he’d caught up and managed to wrestle both the reins and whip from Cassandra’s hand but not before she’d managed to lash out, causing the cyclist to crash into the hedge and then the silence descended.
He’d been holding his breath for the cry, the wail, the scream and nothing. Apart from the slight rustle of leaves and the light patter of hooves scrabbling for footing on the tarmac there was nothing but silence. Silence was the worst sound of all.
Chapter Twelve
Tansy was having a lovely time; a lovely albeit lonely time - not that she’d admit the lonely bit to anyone, especially herself. She’d managed to tidy up after lunch and, racing upstairs, flung off her dress, her only dress, in exchange for her leggings and a thick jumper. Hanging up the black haute couture sheath on its padded hanger she relished for a moment the feel of the silky fabric running through her fingers.
She’d packed the dress at the last minute because it could be stuffed in the corner of her rucksack and was just one of those items that looked better without an iron. Her parents were regular churchgoers even if she’d lapsed but she’d just known going to church was something she’d be expected to do in such a small community. In truth, she’d enjoyed sitting tucked away behind a pillar; an observer instead of one of the observed.
Going to church had always been a grand occasion back home, a military procedure ensuring all the boxes were ticked. Hair coiffed. Shoes polished. Matching handbag. Impeccable nail varnish with none of those chipped bits that were the bane of her life. As often as not, there’d be someone somewhere with a camera or a phone snapping away, trying to catch her out like the time she’d appeared on the front cover of The Sun in odd shoes, something easy to do when she had boxes of the ruddy things in addition to the hangover from hell. Here, life was much simpler as she stared down at her trainers. Here she had a flat pair of black shoes for work, her boots and her trainers. She didn’t need any more.
She bundled her increasingly patchwork hair under her hat before hurtling downstairs and out the back door to where Mary had propped her bike earlier. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d ridden a bike so it must have been a very long time ago. She must have had a bike but she couldn’t really recall, apart from a pink number with the cutest white wicker basket she’d had when she was about six. But riding a bike was one of those things you never forgot or, at least that’s what she kept repeating as she wobbled down the drive. Maybe it was the bike’s fault? Mary was quite a bit shorter, she mused, looking down at her knees almost bent double. But, whatever the reason, she wouldn’t go far, just far enough to escape the confines of the castle and its grounds. She’d never felt claustrophobic before but now… Now she wanted to get as far away from the castle as she could. She wanted to get as far away from him…
If she’d had either the knowledge or the wherewithal to raise the saddle it would have been a different matter but she hadn’t so she didn’t. Instead, she compensated for lack of stability by increasing her speed. She’d always been a speed merchant be it boats, cars, aeroplanes or motorbikes and she didn’t see any need to moderate her behaviour now she was only in charge of a bicycle. She’d had the common sense to check both the tyres and brakes; rudimentary checks nothing like the comprehensive list she ticked her way through each time she took her father’s Cessna up for a spin.
She cycled down the hill, coat streaming out behind her, a scream in her throat before easing into what was meant to be a gentle peddle but turned more into a drunken wobble. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she’d had a glass of the Rioja Mr. Todd had opened to go with the beef. She was as sober as a judge, soberer if anything being as she hadn’t had a drink, an alcoholic drink, since that night he’d rescued her and, with the way she was feeling, there was little point in starting up again. She wasn’t a heavy drinker just a social one but if social drinking could culminate in the embarrassment of all embarrassments then she’d quite happily become tea-total.
Starting to hum a tune, a few bars of one of the songs playing on the radio earlier, made her excursion a little less lonely even if it was only the sound of her own voice for company. She didn’t know all the words, only a few, but it didn’t matter. La La La was perfectly acceptable to anyone that knew anything, anything that is other than the actual words they were meant to be singing. She’d just got to the chorus when she found herself thrown over the handlebars head first into a bush, a holly bush for God’s sake.
She lay there, scared to do more than breathe, the sharp edges of the holly leaves digging into her face as she tried to work out what had just happened. She was all alone cycling down the deserted road and then ‘Boom’. There had been a sharp pain bite into her cheek… A sting? A branch? She had no idea. Her bicycle, Mary’s bicycle had fallen on top of her, pushing her knees into the gravel, her thin leggings being no barrier. She’d have to move but not yet, not just yet.
‘What the hell were you thinking, Cassandra? You could have killed her?’
‘Not bloody likely and anyway she was scaring the horses with her antics.’
God, it would just have to be them.
She’d have groaned if she wasn’t frightened of the spikes wreaking even more devastation.
Tansy wasn't vain more than that. Oh, she was vain in that she liked to make the best of herself and, with a fortune behind her not to mention a pushy mother and a couple of opportunistic friends, she was often portrayed as something she wasn’t. She was most comfortable in her jeans, jeans purchased in Knightsbridge but still jeans. She was also careful of her skin. Not for her the hours of beauty treatments being buffed and preened to within an inch of her life. She liked a decent haircut every six weeks and a proper shampoo that wouldn’t strip out all the natural oils but that wa
s it. She kept her nails short unless her mother actually dragged her to the nail bar at Harrods but, as far as creams went, she used Ponds, the same cream her grandmother had used until the day she’d died; if it had been good enough for her grandmother, who had the most amazing skin for an octogenarian, it was good enough for her. But, lying there with the feel of pin like needles attacking her face, she was worried. She was terrified because one needle was right under her eye.
There was a gentle hand on her arm, her back and then something shift as presumably the bicycle was lifted.
‘Tansy, I need to lift you out of the bush.’
So he recognised her or at least a certain part of her as she felt hysteria build. She’d been runner up in the ‘Rear of the Year’ competition on more than one occasion so she had nothing to worry about on that score unless her seams had split…
‘Please don’t...’ Her voice caught and stuck in the back of her throat.
‘Tansy, it will be alright but I do need to help you…’ His hand now turning from a pat to a reassuring massage.
‘Tor, you need to shut up and listen,’ she finally managed. ‘One of the… One of the spikes is just by my eye,’ her voice dissolving.
She felt him move. Oh God, she’d made him angry. He wasn’t about to leave was he? She wouldn’t cope if he just walked away and left. She’d been having such a lovely time and now she wasn’t.
Everything was silent for a moment, too silent and then he was kneeling beside her again.
‘Tansy, you need to do everything I say, absolutely everything. I’m going to hold back the branches and you’re going to ease back gently,’ his voice dropping to a whisper. ‘Which eye, my sweet?’
The Englishwoman Trilogy: Box set of: Englishwoman in Paris, Englishwoman in Scotland, Englishwoman in Manhattan Page 28